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Dell Earnings Don't Matter If Icahn Campaign Hardens

Written by: Antoine Gara05/16/13 - 4:12 PM EDT

Tickers in this article:
BX DELL IEP MSFT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Dell's earnings, no matter how bad they are, will take a backseat to a campaign being run by activist investor Carl Icahn to scuttle the PC-maker's $13.65 a share takeover by Silver Lake Partners and founder Michael Dell.

Dell's earnings are coming about a week ahead of schedule and CNBC reports the company may miss estimates. The question is whether earnings will have any material impact on Icahn's interest in competing for Dell after other bidders dropped out of the running for the struggling PC maker.

Already, Icahn has called Dell's takeover "the great giveaway" and sees significant value in returning the company's cash stockpile to shareholders and giving investors a leveraged stake in the company's potential turnaround or breakup.

Icahn has indicated in recent media reports Microsoft or Hewlett-Packard could buy Dell's declining PC unit, as he tries to extract value from a burgeoning enterprise division.

Dell and its shareholders await specifics from Icahn on how he would finance a dividend of $12 a share in cash or additional shares.

Icahn has yet to submit a formal, fully financed offer for Dell's board of directors to consider, after it accepted a $24.4 billion offer from the Silver Lake and Michael Dell consortium in February.

Dell formed a special committee to seek higher offers for the company, receiving proposals from Icahn and private equity giant Blackstone Group, however, the leveraged recapitalization of Dell remains the only alternative to the initial full takeover bid.

Icahn and Southeastern hold about 13% of Dell's outstanding shares and expect at least 20% of Dell shareholders to take Dell shares instead of the stock dividend. According to the proposal, investors opting for Dell shares over the dividend would get about 7.3 Dell shares priced at $1.65 for each current share.

Icahn and Southeastern would both opt out of the cash dividend and instead take the $12 payment in Dell shares priced at $1.65.